TFE premaster? ah yes, those mp3s, all of them with one or two seconds missing at the start or the end of the tracks. that's the one right? is it really a premaster, by the way? maybe the mp3 encoding made it "look" less compressed?

As far as I know to this day the copy of Sequence IV that is circulating that nearly everyone has, had all sorts of digital cleanup and fuckery done to it.

When I brought this up at some point in the past decade someone came forward and was going to circulate a clean copy of the original source but as far as I know that has never happened.

If you are going to do this I recommend not including Sequence IV unless you can get back to the original, not the fucked up one everyone has from the hub. The fucked up version needs to die in flames and I'm amazed it still has not been corrected because I started trying to fix this 13 years ago.

TFE premaster? ah yes, those mp3s, all of them with one or two seconds missing at the start or the end of the tracks. that's the one right? is it really a premaster, by the way? maybe the mp3 encoding made it "look" less compressed?

I am fairly confident this advanced promo is also is a pre-master.
Disregard the below, it probably went through some normalisation process when ripped.

Yes, MP3 encoding can make things look less compressed but generally not this much.
One of the key things is that the average volume is 4dB lower, but it still peaks to -0dB, this is significant, as compression does not affect it quite this much.

In fact, decent comparisons can be made because the MP3 encoder version and settings are embedded in the MP3 itself.

By volume matching, and then re-encoding you can see the difference in the waveform clearly.

Here is the mastered version of A100 from the official release (red indicates clipping):

Here is the advanced promo:

Volume matching the official release to the advanced promo gives the following:

Encoding to MP3 with identical settings gives the following:

Overlaying the waveform of the newly encoded MP3 onto the advanced promo. The magenta is the waveform of the advanced copy:

And for good measure, the official release encoded to MP3 with no volume adjustments:

notice that the TFE "premaster" didn't necessarily come from a promo. i've got the watermarked promo, and that one definitely doesn't contain a premaster.

the TFE "premaster" appeared as a "scene" leak. mp3s only. if i remember it correctly, the files were called _bla, or something similar. that must be some indication about who leaked it?

if you want to check the watermarked TFE promo, i've got EAC rips of five different copies. (track 1 is missing. they added some weird copy protection, which made track 1 not readable.)https://www.mediafire.com/folder/di5...fe-watermarked (the number between "tfe-" and "-txx.flac" is the number that was on each watermarked cd-r.)

i'm not entirely convinced by your analysis, magickarper.
if anything, you're showing that mp3 encoding can really change what the audio file looks like. you lose that "blocked" look immediately.
what if there was a volume adjustment or normalisation before they encoded to mp3? then you'd have no information about that in the mp3 file, right? (you don't know how exactly the volume was reduced, or how much.)
maybe they did take the commercial release, put it through their ripping software, and the "premaster mp3s" is what came out of it? that doesn't seem entirely impossible, does it?

notice that the TFE "premaster" didn't necessarily come from a promo. i've got the watermarked promo, and that one definitely doesn't contain a premaster.

the TFE "premaster" appeared as a "scene" leak. mp3s only. if i remember it correctly, the files were called _bla, or something similar. that must be some indication about who leaked it?

Ah, right. It is labelled as an advanced promo from whoever I downloaded it from.

It came with this image:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cool As Ice Cream

if you want to check the watermarked TFE promo, i've got EAC rips of five different copies. (track 1 is missing. they added some weird copy protection, which made track 1 not readable.)https://www.mediafire.com/folder/di5...fe-watermarked (the number between "tfe-" and "-txx.flac" is the number that was on each watermarked cd-r.)

i'm not entirely convinced by your analysis, magickarper.
if anything, you're showing that mp3 encoding can really change what the audio file looks like. you lose that "blocked" look immediately.
what if there was a volume adjustment or normalisation before they encoded to mp3? then you'd have no information about that in the mp3 file, right? (you don't know how exactly the volume was reduced, or how much.)
maybe they did take the commercial release, put it through their ripping software, and the "premaster mp3s" is what came out of it? that doesn't seem entirely impossible, does it?

Ah, right. It is labelled as an advanced promo from whoever I downloaded it from.

It came with this image:

were these the _bla files? (i have not seem those together with a picture of the watermarked cd-r.)
if they indeed came from that cd, then it's not a premaster.
i believe the audio doesn't look identical to the commercial release (which might explain the difference between blue and pink, i guess), but it's still clipping.

about waveforms and what compression can do to them:
i remember we made the same mistake with the zeitgeist watermarked cd-r (people were convinced this contained the pre-master of the album after seeing the waveforms of some mp3s off it - it does not, unfortunately), and when looking for a promo cd-r that contained the machina pre-master (i once thought i had found one promo with the machina pre-master, but was basing myself on wma files the owner had sent me, before making a lossless rip).

the bla mp3s also seem to be missing one or two seconds at the start or end of the tracks, if i remember it correctly.
maybe they used a watermarked cd-r as a source, but instead of ripping it, like a normal, non-copy-protected cd, they captured the audio somehow (e.g. play cd on computer and record from the soundcard), track per track? that could explain the incomplete tracks. it doesn't explain running a little bit slow. or does it?

Well the tags indicate it was ripped with EAC. But I guess that may be inaccurate, or it may have been ripped from a copy.

The seconds missing from the start and end don't account for the difference in duration, but I guess if they captured the audio off the CD with an imprecise ADC or DAC involved then that may account for it. If that were the case it could also account for the change in dynamics.

I think I like this theory best so far. Partly because if this were a pre-master, I think it would be much more obvious.

As far as I know to this day the copy of Sequence IV that is circulating that nearly everyone has, had all sorts of digital cleanup and fuckery done to it.

When I brought this up at some point in the past decade someone came forward and was going to circulate a clean copy of the original source but as far as I know that has never happened.

If you are going to do this I recommend not including Sequence IV unless you can get back to the original, not the fucked up one everyone has from the hub. The fucked up version needs to die in flames and I'm amazed it still has not been corrected because I started trying to fix this 13 years ago.

It was originally leaked by the owner of the master DAT to a few CD-Rs via trade to some people. Then from there it sprung to ebay and eventually the shns. I already ripped the orignal traded CD-R and upped it to whatcd last year I think.

Edit:
WWWAAAAAIIIT I guess I can't remember if it was on ebay first, then the purchaser traded it out to a few people... Forget it.